Ben Caplan & The Casual Smokers, King Tut's Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow, review: Deserve wider acknowledgement

For all the fierceness of the Canadian's appearance, nothing quite prepares for his voice, both spoken and singing

Ben Caplan & The Casual Smokers

Ben Caplan is a presence it’s impossible to mistake. He’s tall, and wears a tweed coat, a huge, grizzly brown beard, and an incongruous topknot upon his head.

For all the fierceness of his appearance, though, nothing quite prepares for his voice, both spoken and singing. It’s a deep, fiery bellow, at once commanding and possessed of quite unexpected tenderness; think Tom Waits, but on occasion more inclined towards an earthy shout to wake the audience from any reverie they might have entered. Most well-known in his native Canada – he’s from Nova Scotia – since releasing his first of two albums in 2011, he deserves wider acknowledgement.

Flitting between guitar and piano, Caplan’s backing trio the Casual Smokers includes an upright bassist, a melodica player and a drummer.

The songs are rock with a folksy, bourbon-soaked twist, from the confessional ‘The Dozens’ (“I’m a lovers enemy and I can't be counted on”) to the carousing ‘I Got Me a Woman’ and ‘Down to the River’. Amidst them comes the tenderness, most unexpectedly; piano ballads ‘Lover’s Waltz’ and ‘Belly of the Worm’, the latter about death. “It ain’t your job to take care of me… as each flower blooms, each flower is doomed,” he hollers affectingly, cackling as the song becomes a discordant racket. It’s some trip.